Drawing Fish with Lines and Shapes

In Kindergarten this year, we've been focusing on drawing the world around us using lines and shapes.
This colorful fish was drawn by Gabe.

For this project, we first read a story about different kinds of fish, and talked about the shapes, lines, and patterns we saw in each one.... lots of ovals, triangles, circles and rectangles, and lines of all kinds: straight, zig zag, curvy, vertical, horizontal and diagonal. Next, I demonstrated how we could combine these shapes, lines, and patterns in different ways to draw any kind of fish we wanted. I displayed examples of a variety of fish to inspire us, and the kids came up with some wonderful fish of their own, as you will see!

1. Choose one oil pastel to draw a large "fish shape", filling most of your paper.
2. Use more shapes to add fins and a tail.
3. Now, color your fish, filling in as completely as you can. (Play "Hide the White Paper"!)
4. Next, use a dark color to draw either vertical or horizontal lines (or both!), and fill in each of the new sections you created with a different fun pattern.
5. Finally, color the water using the side of an oil pastel, with the paper removed. Layer different shades of blue - you can even add some green here and there to make your water more interesting! (Using the side of the oil pastel when filling in a large area really helps the kinders to complete their backgrounds.)